U.S. Again Gunning For "Regime Change" In Iraq

The U.S. has conditioned any involvement on the Iraqi government side on a change in its structure towards some "unity government" that would include representatives of the rebellious Sunni strains. Prime Minister Maliki, who received good results in the recent elections, will see no reason to go for that.

As expected Maliki declined to follow orders out of Washington DC and he is right to do so. Isn't Iraq supposed to be a sovereign state?

Over the past two days the American ambassador, Robert S. Beecroft, along with Brett McGurk, the senior State Department official on Iraq and Iran, have met with Usama Nujaifi, the leader of the largest Sunni contingent, United For Reform, and with Ahmad Chalabi, one of the several potential Shiite candidates for prime minister, according to people close to each of those factions, as well as other political figures.

“Brett and the ambassador met with Mr. Nujaifi yesterday and they were open about this, they do not want Maliki to stay,” Nabil al-Khashab, the senior political adviser to Mr. Nujaifi, said Thursday.

This move lets arouse suspicions that the recent insurgency against the Iraqi state, with ISIS takfiris in the front line, did not just by chance started after Maliki's party, the State of Law Coalition, won in the parliamentary elections a few weeks ago. It had been decided that he had to go. When the elections confirmed him, other methods had to be introduced. Thus the insurgency started and is now used as a pretext for "regime change".

The U.S. media and policies again fall for the "big bad man" cliche portraying Nouri al-Maliki (Arabic for Ngo Dinh Diem) as the only person that stands in the way of Iraq as a "liberal democracy". That is of course nonsense. Maliki is not the problem in Iraq:

The most significant factor behind Iraq’s problems has been the inability of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and its Sunni neighbors to come to terms with a government in which the Shias, by virtue of their considerable majority in Iraq’s population, hold the leading role. This inability was displayed early on, when Iraq’s Sunnis refused to take part in Iraq’s first parliamentary elections, and resorted to insurgency almost immediately after the US invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein. All along, the goal of Iraqi Sunnis has been to prove that the Shias are not capable of governing Iraq. Indeed, Iraq’s Sunni deputy prime minister, Osama al Najafi, recently verbalized this view. The Sunnis see political leadership and governance to be their birthright and resent the Shia interlopers.

The U.S., with strong support from its GCC allies who finance the insurgency, now seems to again lean towards the Sunni minority side in Iraq and wants to subvert the ruling of a Shia majority and its candidate. Maliki doesn't follow Washington orders, is somewhat friendly with Iran and even wins elections. Such man can not be let standing.

So the program is again "regime change" in Iraq, now with the help of Jihadists proxies, even after the recent catastrophic "successes" in similar endeavors in Libya, Egypt and Ukraine and the failure in Syria.

The ISIS-led insurgency currently gripping the western and northern regions of Iraq is but a continuation of the imperialist-sponsored insurgency in neighboring Syria. The state actors responsible for arming and funding said insurgency hold the same principal objectives in Iraq as those pursued in Syria for the last three years, namely: the destruction of state sovereignty; weakening the allies of an independent Iran; the permanent division of Iraq and Syria along sectarian lines establishing antagonistic “mini-states” incapable of forming a unified front against US/Israeli imperial domination.

The best thing Maliki could now do is to shut down the U.S. embassy and request support from Russia, China and Iran. South Iraq is producing lots of oil and neither money nor the number of potential recruits for a big long fight are his problem. His problem is the insurgency and the states, including the United States, behind it. The fight would be long and Iraq would still likely be parted but the likely outcome would at least guarantee that the will of the majority constituency can not be ignored by outside actors.

Bowles, It's worse than "ain't gonna happen", if it did, it has the potental to blow up central asia, and possibly the world. Shutting the embassy, not so much, but if Russia, China, much less Iran, dive into the Iraq "quagmire" it will be an escalation that the neocons need to make their case for all-out war - which they're pushing for non-stop in all MSM all day every day. Did you see Dick and Liz Cheney's lying hypocrosy piece in WSJ?

Opinion
The Collapsing Obama Doctrine
Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.

By Dick Cheney And Liz Cheney
Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is "ending" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America's enemies are not "decimated." They are emboldened and on the march.

Crest@13. The Iraqi military's air offensive capability is 3 Cessna light planes with hellfire missiles, that they may or may not have, and a few lightly armed helicopters.
The American offer to supply aircraft for the Iraqi air force, comes with significant strings attached, in this case the strings are what hold those fighters together, the Sopwith camel bi-planes equipped with rifle, which when fired, discharges a flag with 'bang' written on it. If you don't believe me ask the Lebanese. After all they could be regarded as part of the 'axis of resistance' or the 'Shia arc', and therefore a possible threat to Israel.

Yes, they will all lap it up like good obedient little pissants because that's what the cowed do: they willingly slurp up the vomit of their masters.

See, one of TPTB's most masterful propagandistic tricks of the trade is to ensure that the pompous and pseudo-intellectual bourgeoisie retain their smug sense of being "smarter" and more "knowledgeable" than their government because otherwise they might actually feel the chains around their necks/minds as they go about ignoring the wholesale crimes of their overlords.

I mean, as a member of the war criminal elite, how better to successfully guarantee that there will be ZERO real opposition or consequence to ANY of your PREMEDITATED war criminal actions - that, btw, naturally increase your already immense power and wealth, naturally - than if you make every new event/situation seem as if it's just once again a complex mish-mash of incompetence and folly, that there's no one really to blame - that is, unless the "blame game" is rolled out to keep the peons engaged - and that no matter how closely current events may hew to past published strategies and plans the new events/situations must ALWAYS be considered NEW developments that necessarily require NEW thinking, NEW analysis and NEW commentary by the very same propagandist whores who have served up the same exact fucking nonsense during every "new" event/situation.

For a trite example, feast you eyes on the feeble-minded bourgeois shit littering the pages of Counterpunch's weekend edition today. Every single commentary about Iraq - there are about 4 or 5 - prominently squares itself with the "incompetence" theory.

Yup, after all that we have been through and witnessed over the last 10+ years - starting with the fantastical stories TPTB told us about 9/11 on down to the present - the vast majority of people have seemingly not learned a fucking thing, not a single fucking thing.

I mean even putting aside a look at the details of 9/11, the Iraq War, the financial crisis or anything else, you'd have thunk that at the VERY LEAST people would've understood by now that invoking the "incompetence" meme - which is rolled out by the criminal actors THEMSELVES, ffs! - only leads to a the mitigation of their crimes and sets up the rollout of the next "oopsie" that they've had on their calendars for years.

Hey, dipshits, if we instead treated TPTB's actions not as incompetent "errors" but as premeditated war crimes - y'know, using the available documented evidence - then we might not be stuck on this hamster wheel of incessant slaughter, you stupid fucking idiots.

Seriously, Western society - but especially the educated classes - is a fucking embarrassment in that we've seen absolutely NO abatement as concerns the power, wealth and criminality of TPTB during said time period - NOT A EBBING DAY - yet the smug pompous bourgeois fuckheads can smile as they sleep thinking along with Rachel Maddow: oh, those stupid necons/neoliberals they just don't know what they're doing once again.

Not much to debate when dealing with recognized mass murderers instead of "misguided" public servants, huh?

I mean, they don't call it the COURT of public opinion for nothing and TPTB - i.e, those supposedly stupid drooling fucking troglodytes - truly understand this idea because after each new bit of wreckage - be it physical, emotional, financial, etc - that they have DIRECTLY caused they claim that they were just "incompetent" and therefore should necessarily be exonerated.

"Oooh, but their reputations are tarnished!" scream the insecure, status-hungry bourgeois morons, "They won't be able to live THAT one down!"

Oh really? Besides the fact that 99.999999999% of them never lose even their jobs much less their freedom, they get to keep all of their ill-gotten gains AND they know that the attention span of Western society is about...what was I saying again? oh yeah...what do they really "lose"?

If criminally-minded people are willing to murder/steal for a few hundred bucks, imagine what said people are willing to do for a few million? billion? trillion? and all the power-trappings that said lucre entails.

Nope, the bourgeois fucking idiots continue to thinks that TPTB - but especially the inherently AMORAL Straussian neocons - actually give a flying fuck about what the fucking bourgeois rabble think of them.

Didn't you see the tongue-lashing Rachel gave Liz Cheney. Oh, no she ditn't!!!

Judge: Jeffrey Dahmer, you stand accused of brutally murdering a bunch of innocent people. How do you plea?

JD: Incompetent, you honor.

Judge: Mentally incompetent? Unfit of trial?

JD: Nah, I just made a mistake or two here and there. The situation was complex and I pulled a boner.

Judge: Um, yes, you pulled one right off a dismembered rotting corpses in your apartment and then you ate that boner.

JD: That was just a one-time slip-up.

Judge: We found the remains of several other people you killed in your apartment and you confessed that you had killed at least 10 others.

JD: Incompetence!

American/Western Public: What a moron, Jeffrey Dahmer is!! He left the half-eaten remains of his victims in his apartment for the police to find!!! He's probably a Republican! Ha ha! Let him go!!He's too stupid to be dangerous anymore especially now that we've SHAMED him!!!

TEN YEARS PASS:

TV Host: Today, we will be talking to Jeffrey Dahmer about a recent spate of killings that he's been involved in to see if he can offer any insights as to how he feels about this new wave of bloodshed. Jeffrey, anything to say?

JD: Thanks. The situation is complex but I'm gonna - going out on a limb here - have to say that it all boils down to my incompetence once again.

TV Host: There you have it, folks! We've made him admit that mistakes were made once again!!!! Gotcha, JD!!!

Virgle, that Rand piece reads like Stratfor. Although, Stratfor never, ever makes any attempt to 'follow the money', and the Rand piece almost did, here:
...
•Expand economic opportunities. The ability of some radical organizations to address entrenched social and economic problems has created a growing base of support for their politics. Provision of alternative social services in many places might help to indirectly undercut the appeal of the extremists. In particular, the United States and its allies should focus on initiatives that improve the economic prospects of the young. Programs that promote economic expansion and self-sufficiency can help reduce the opportunities for extremists to exploit economic hardship and the perception that the United States has only military interests in the Muslim world.
...
Looking back as far as the French getting themselves thrown out of Algeria, what? fifty something years ago, it was about money. Actually the lack of it in 98% of the population. The money part is completely missing in western MSM - no surprise - can't admit it's about oil or money.

All about ... A leader is bad, B leader is good, X leader is our hopeful upcoming man, etc. merely reinforces a sort of fascistic strong man scene, which of course regularly breaks down and just serves to fool Joe Public into some kind of personalia quarrelling (e.g. Clinton vs Jeb Bush, Saddam and Kadafi, etc.)

Maliki may be this or that, whatever, he certainly did not perform to US standards, because that was impossible to begin with…Heads of *puppet* Gvmts. in client states regularly roll or are chopped off, slash kaboom.

So what is the US-Saudi-Isr really doing here? (+UK, Quatar, EU, etc. depending on issue.)

Imho they no longer know and are totally confused, through their own failure of goals / analysis. Or so it seems.

What ‘they’ -the PTB, the rich, the Security apparatus - are going for is the destruction of Nation States with public policy in favour of ethnically / religiously defined territory with heads such as War Lords, Mafia bosses, Religious Leaders, Oligarchs and Major Industrialists, adulated Movie Stars / Sports men, that can keep the population poor, despairing, quiet and submissive.

WW3 would be too destructive and harmful, specially for the finance industry, which skims off all activity, requires growth and a stable world, specially energy. Also the arms industry has no interest in war but only in tension, it needs to sell it’s stuff without it being used. (If it is used, there are no clients left.)

So all leads to mad contradictions stemming from previous propaganda (supporting rebels in Syria.. and fighting AlQ as an ex) but heh no matter. It all has to be about violent fights and cultural hangups and crazed religion. The more ppl die, the better.

Corporations world-wide, their top staff, will benefit (for a short while) and that is it. Israel is of course an emblematic adulated forward-moving pioneer as the first (in recent times) endorsed, accepted by the int’l community as a religiously/ethnically defined state.

OECD stats show that children in Israel are the second worst off - after the US/GB. The children are not needed, are dreck who cost too much. That makes Israel a top figure, a model to emulate, and respect.

but if Russia, China, much less Iran, dive into the Iraq "quagmire" it will be an escalation that the neocons need to make their case for all-out war - which they're pushing for non-stop in all MSM all day every day. Did you see Dick and Liz Cheney's lying hypocrosy piece in WSJ?

No. It wouldn't escalate if Maliki made it emphatically clear he specifically was engaging in a trilateral and limited agreement with Russia and China for assistance in mitigating the ISIS onslaught. The "neocons" can jump up and down in the MSM all they want, but Obama obviously, somehow, isn't biting. Colonel Mustard is under the impression Dempsey has enough influence and sway with Obama to keep him from swallowing the "neocon" propaganda that's allegedly banging down his door or attempting to grab his wrist with the pen and diverting his signature to war plans. I don't think it's that simple. At times like this, I think it's best to ask, "what would Frank Underwood do?" and do the opposite, but in Washington, increasingly, it's "what would Frank Underwood do?" and then do it. We know they all watch the show like it's a documentary and thus art imitates life and in turn, in a self-reinforcing loop, life imitates art. In that sense, Frank Underwood really is effectively President even though it's just a fiction. What is fiction these days versus non-fiction? The delineation is blurred. We need new terms of distinction because the old terms no longer apply.

In fact, if you think about it, The West would love to entice Russia and China into a quagmire — you know, the quagmire Cheney spoke of in 1994 and then went diving into it ten years later as VP. Considering this, The West would not escalate if Russia and China became overtly, rather than covertly, involved. In fact, they'd welcome it and say, "have at it, boys, now it's your turn to wear the target on your back and we'll fund the insurgency like you did the last time." It's similar to cross-training where everybody learns to do everyone else's job or play everyone else's role. This time, Russia and China get to be on top in this latest rape of Iraq. Let's see if they can step up to the plate with the Big Boys once and for all rather than hiding in the shadows as has been their wont.

Mina, that article you linked to was a reprint from USA Today/The Associated Press, which makes me doubt its authenticity. More quotes from O and Kerry than Sistani - sounded like hasbara to me. I'd like to hear an exact translation of Sistani's words.

More or less agree that the Pussies & Wusses, who wish US/NATO could be a force to be feared, feel obliged to create a lot of confusing scenarios to help us forget that Putin and Xi are preparing to show them who isn't in charge any more.
Sooner the better, imo.

Imho they no longer know and are totally confused, through their own failure of goals / analysis. Or so it seems.

What ‘they’ -the PTB, the rich, the Security apparatus - are going for is the destruction of Nation States with public policy in favour of ethnically / religiously defined territory with heads such as War Lords, Mafia bosses, Religious Leaders, Oligarchs and Major Industrialists, adulated Movie Stars / Sports men, that can keep the population poor, despairing, quiet and submissive.

WW3 would be too destructive and harmful, specially for the finance industry, which skims off all activity, requires growth and a stable world, specially energy. Also the arms industry has no interest in war but only in tension, it needs to sell it’s stuff without it being used. (If it is used, there are no clients left.)

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 20, 2014 12:10:01 PM | 116

A good enough analysis, imho

Certainly far far better, and far far more intelligent, than anything the Donkey-Dongers have suggested

My first thought too re Maliki, was Diem in Vietnam, only in Vietnam, the US 'arranged' his assassination, a far neater and less messy way of dealing with obstacles to imperial ambitions.

It's all standard operating procedure, read your Agee, Stockwell, or Marchetti et al. Hilarious if it wasn't so tragic, we have the US arming this so-called ISIS or ISIL, or as I know it, US asset, trained and assembled in Jordan as a contra force in Syria, and now deployed in Iraq to get rid of Maliki and no doubt just for appearances, will have to bomb them on their way to Baghdad. It's the Iran-Iraq war all over again, with the US backing all the sides. Brilliant!

Is it any wonder that the US is reluctant to bomb its own asset in Iraq. And importantly I think, for us in the metropolitan centers of Empire, none of this could be effectively marketed without the direct and complicit involvement of the state and corporate media.

The BBC for example, has hidden the real nature of ISIS/ISIL from the public and of course daren't! What if the BBC or major print media ran with the story of a US asset in one country, being an enemy in another?

Could be hasbara but I doubt it. I've never hear an Iraqi praise Maliki. The Iraqis have been disgusted by anything the Americans hace done in their country, such as organizing conferences to promote organic agriculture among other nice ways to recycle money and create corruption at a wider scale as never before...
But it was the "opening news" on the 18h French public radio. Indeed they specialize in hasbara, but I thought it was worth checking.
Interestingly, what Sistani is calling for is the same as Fabius yesterday.
The deal must have been settled long ago. Look how the Turks got suddenly nice with the Kurs since 3 months.
The problem of Maliki is not his sectarianism (this had been imposed by the US from the start), it is corruption and widespread torture.

His last moves are not making sense anywayhttp://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/19062014
" Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the release of 2,000 Shiite prisoners in the north to take up arms against Sunni insurgents advancing on Baghdad, as his embattled government formally asked the US for air strikes to stop the rebels."

Al-Dabash fought against the 2003 US invasion as part of a Sunni insurgency and went on to form the Islamic Army of Iraq to fight the Allied troops which made him a key US terrorist target.

"Maliki must first be deposed," said the commander. "Then we demand the fragmentation of Iraq into three autonomous regions, with Sunnis, Shia and Kurds sharing resources equally.

"And finally we need compensation for the one and half million Iraqis, most of them Sunnis, who have been killed at the hands of the Americans and the Maliki regime."
...
He claims the belief, that a few hundred Isis militants took control of large swathes of northern Iraq without any help, is a myth. Sunnis of different creeds have joined forces to tackle the Shia-led government.

"Is it possible that a few hundred Isis jihadists can take the whole of Mosul?," asked Dabash.

"No. All the Sunni tribes have come out against Maliki. And there are parts of the military, Baathists from the time of Saddam Hussein, clerics, everyone came out for the oppression that we have been suffering.

"The call by the Shia sheikhs to their people to fight is going to lead to a civil war," said Dabash. "We hope they will retreat from this but if they do not then we are ready. All the Sunnis now are in one direction."

Speaking of the Sunni "awakening", the army chief lays responsibility at the feet of the US invasion for creating an enivronment of "oppression and violence" for young Iraqis.

"Those who are 18 today were children ten years ago. They grew up in a hateful environment," he said.

"They have seen too much oppression and violence; first by the Americans, and then by the Iraqi government who came to power on an American tank. Now, they are eager to bite off the head of the snake."

Al-Dabash says that, despite the alliance with Isis, the two groups do not share similar policies, with the Islamic Army of Iraq wanting to create a confederation in Iraq rather than an Islamic caliphate.

"We are not extreme like Isis, and we disagree with their policies. We reject using Sharia. We want a constitution under civil law."

Shrug. Most of your posts are just personal attacks on people you disagree with (You've spent something like 4 posts calling anyone you disagree with donkey-dongs. Not exactly a sign of rationality or credibility. But whatever floats your boat man.) while ignoring common sense implications of the plots you believe in. For instance why would the US unleash ISIS in Iraq if it wants to diminish Iranian power and influence, since the result of unleashing ISIS is that the US must now fight ISIS? That kind of defeats the point doesn't it?

So we spent years trying to get rid of Asad only to intentionally push ISIS in Iraq thus creating a two front war...one trying to get rid of Asad and another to fight ISIS in Syria at the same time? How does that make any sense? If we wanted to get rid of Asad we should leave ISIS to it, no? For that matter the major debate in the US is now to what degree do we fight ISIS, with what forces, etc. If we wanted ISIS to lessen Iranian power, again we'd just let them have at the Shia for a few years.

As for ISIS riding around in the HUMVEEs. We poured tons of equipment into that country and donate/leave a lot of it behind for the forces we train when we leave. So which is a more realistic scenario, that the US secretly plotted to leave this all along years in advance or that the official story is correct, that ISIS looted these along with a lot of other valuable gear in Mosul and other captured cities?

Again all of these actions make the US look incompetent and foolish, which it hates more than anything. (most of the rage against Snowden and Manning isn't about what they revealed, its that they made the empire look incompetent and foolish, and then when they couldn't catch Snowden it made them look even more incompetent and foolish) So intentionally leaving gear behind with the intent for Jihadis to can gain them is just crazy pills since it lessens US prestige in the region/world. (and if you think empires don't value pride, prestige, and their own vanity above damn near everything else then you haven't bothered to study any actual empires.)

As for the Penny for your thoughts site i'll have to spend more time reading there to see if it's worthwhile and trustworthy. My first impression is that there's certainly a lot of colors being used, but i'll give them a chance and see how reality tracks their predictions.

As for the Georgian guy. Seriously, so what? There's a combination of mercs, jihadis, and other assorted death dealers who float from war to war ad nauseum. So unless you also have pictures of him posing with Obama and prince Bandar while high fiving you've got...well nothing really. +1 for internet speculations!

The post on the chemical weapons stockpiles apparently didn't bother to read the actual article. These are the remnants from up to decades ago and if you read the very last sentence in the article the expert says that the biggest hazard from them is anyone foolish enough to try and disturb them in their silos. (IE lots of rusty metal containers filled with potentially corrosive toxic gasses) So the chances ISIS can salvage anything looks pretty slim and they're in far greater danger of gassing their own troops when the disturb the old containers. When I put my rational thinking cap on I can think, why gee, ISIS doesn't actually need all this old krap to pull a low-grade chemical weapons attack when they can just use a tanker truck filled with chlorine or something similar to accomplish the same thing. Derp.

I'm not going to waste further brain cells debating you. If you and the rest of the echo chamber want to believe this is all the culmination of a decades long bilderbug plot knock yourself out. The proof is in the pudding though, and 6 months down the road we'll see how this plays out and if your predictions are true or not. pretty fair eh?

-SAA cannot take Aleppo if the Northeastern part of the country is not secured by the Kurds. This is already the case except problems in the last two months around Dayr al Zor, i. e. the area where the transborder Iraqi Sunni tribes live. There is no possible deal on peace in Syria without giving something to the Kurds. This was supposed to be the federalization of Syria, but the Mosul takeover by Isil changes that.
-There won't be a Palestinian solution without the Kurds getting a state (they are 30 millions).
-Ukraine is a nice way to pressure Putin and Asad into accepting the emergence of Kurdistan and its doing business with Israel (it did with the 2nd shipment of oil that went through Turkey and is now doing it againhttp://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2014/6/state8117.htm
"Iraqi Kurdistan looked set to unload its first cargo of disputed crude oil in Israel from its new independent pipeline after weeks of seeking an outlet as Iraq's central government has threatened legal action against any buyer."

130
Its hilarious that you still seem to think that I give a damn what you have to say about anything.

I already informed you that I don't read 90% of the crap you post, and it's actually around 99% now since I read only about 5 words of your latest drivel before deciding it was just more of the usual drivel

but knock yerself out boring the shit out of everyone else with your inability to admit you don't know yer ass from your elbow, if ya want

you seem to possess a cast-iron belief in the soundness of your risible attempts at "rigourous analysis", so there's little I could say to convince you to stop making a fool of yourself in that regard, so I won't bother :)

US FP only has to make sense to the 1% whom, I believe, have a death-wish.
You probably need to read this analysis:

If Maliki’s a good guy, then so is Assad
... ...

"If ever there were an example of governments (and mass media) dishonestly invoking charges of terrorism to justify a war against people with legitimate grievances, this is it. As one tribal leader of a Sunni rebel tribal council in Anbar put it: “It is an exaggeration and an attempt to stop the revolution against the Maliki government to say that ISIS is leading the fight. This is a rebellion against the unfairness and marginalization” of Sunnis by Baghdad.

It’s also a demonstration of Western double-standards and the complete bankruptcy of the official Western discourse on antiterrorism, human rights, democracy and the Arab Spring."

Actually, considering that the US has a 25 percent world incarceration rate and about 5 percent of the world's population leniency they showed in Iraq is quite amazing - Daily Telegraph

While Isis foresees the creation of a hardline Islamic State ruled by Sharia, Mr Dabash’s men are more nationalistic, pushing for Iraq to become a confederation.
“We are not extreme like Isis, and we disagree with their policies. We reject using Sharia. We want a constitution under civil law.”
Mr Dabash was circumspect on whether he would turn against Isis, not wanting to cause rifts in their current alliance.
But, should the extremist group not bow to his group’s laws, he implied to The Telegraph that there would be little choice but to fight them.
Mr Dabash is a master at changing alliances. In 2003 he said he was a “brother to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” al-Qaeda’s leader.
In 2006 the Islamic Army broke away from al-Qaeda, denouncing them as “too extreme”.
However, they continued to fight the Americans in a bitter war that saw 293 members of Mr Dabash’s tribe killed, including four women.
“I was wanted, and so many of my relatives died in US targeted air strikes. They were trying to kill me,” he said. “Many were also killed by Shia forces trained by the US.”
Eventually Mr Dabash was captured and spent two years under interrogation in an American jail in Iraq.
Now, however, Mr Dabash is willing to make peace with the West if it means ousting Mr Maliki.

for anyone else that couldn't be bothered wading through hundreds of words of shite posted @ 130 here's the considerably shorter version:

"It's the Ineptitude!! See? If they were not so inept then they would not be well positioned to benefit from this. See if they were smarter they wouldn't be so inept, and since they are inept then they can't be smart, can they, and if they were smart well they wouldn't be able to benefit. and so if they were smarter they wouldn't be so inept, and wouldn't be able to benefit. . . . etc etc ad infinitum blah blah blah"

Sheikh Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir al-Batawi, also known as Ahmed al-Dabash, was a major financier and facilitator of terrorism in Iraq, most notably the bomb attack in the Shiite holy city of Karbala on March 2, 2004. In that attack, several pre-set explosives were detonated near one of the most important Shiite shrines in Iraq - the Golden Dome Mosque.
More than 140 Iraqis were murdered and hundreds were wounded in the attack that occurred during the Shiite observance of Ashoura, a time when thousands of pilgrims gathered in Karbala. It is believed that Dabash also was responsible for the attack on the Shiite al-Tawhid Mosque in Baghdad and for facilitating other terror attacks around Baghdad.
Coalition forces consider Dabash's capture significant for the critical information they believe he will provide on al Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network. They said he is known to have close ties to these organizations.

So he got released in 2008? Petraeus? Awakening Councils? Sons of Iraq?

Just in the last few posts we still have people claiming that the US war criminal elite GIVE A FLYING FLIPPING FUCK whether or not they are being shamed by the bourgeois Internet "analysts" and/or the MSM minions who just happen to be on TPTB payroll and who they owe their celebrity lives to?!!

Holy fuck. What is it going to take for these "serious-minded" intrepid analysts to understand what MILLIONS of Americans already viscerally know:

TPTB DO NOT NOT NOT NOT FUCKING GIVE A SHIT what you, your brother or 10 million of your closest friends fucking think about ANYTHING they do no matter how seemingly nonsensical, embarrassing or bungling it may appear to us peons. Get off your "America is a democracy" shitbox and quit being embarrassing dupes.

Absolutely NO accountability = absolutely no reason for any of them to care what we think.

What is so fucking complicated about this equation that people don't get?

All of the "theater of shame/blame game" crap you see on TV is exactly that: FUCKING THEATER to make it seem as if they are accountable you effing tartars, FFS!!!!!

Again after all that has happened just in the last 10+ years, sober-minded people really think that they actually have some INPUT as to how TPTB run their own games?

What are you, fucking children?

The people who "shamefully and incompetently" destroyed Iraq are back making the television/print rounds.

Gee, sure seems like they give a flying fuck and are just really shamefaced about having stolen HOW MANY BILLION$? TRILLION$? for themselves and other members of their criminal class.

Obama has committed mass murder in Libya, Syria and Ukraine. Does HE looked fucking worried/shamed?

Nope, not when he can count on you effing nimrods to help him "complexify" the situations and lay all of their "mistakes" - which NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN PUNISHED FOR REMEMBER - at the foot of their incompetence.

And then people wonder why I insist on not allowing the issue of the false flag of 9/11 to die: it's because that's really when you all you fucking indoctrinated dillweeds swallowed and swallowed and swallowed Gingerbread Man-type story after Gingerbread Man-type story and never looked back all the way down to today where EVERY SINGLE ANALYSIS about ISIS will mention that they were originally a branch of Al-CIAda - boo hiss - but NONE OF THEM MENTION how fucking ridiculous the ENTIRE HISTORY of Al-CIAda is in the FIRST PLACE!!!!

Dillweed: Y'know, JSorrentine, "serious" people like to begin "serious" discussions at the beginning of things that's why when we're talking about Iraq we ALWAYS like to mention that if it hadn't been for those incompetent neocons, Al-CIAda would have never been in Iraq in the first place and we would have probably already won the GWOT!

JSorrentine: WTF ARE YOU SAYING?!!!That you believe that Al-CIAda was an honest to goodness ME-homegrown threat whose fantastically physics-defying attacks on 9/11 were the result of incomprehensible - utterly unbelievable - incompetence on the part of the US etc governments AND NOT a well-executed false flag event to kick off the US War of Aggression aka GWOT?!!

Dillweed: Well, to think any other way would not be serious. The situation is complex. The actors are incompetent. Thankfully, the Internet here allows me to type messages that these incompetent actors might see and which serves to show them how stupid I think they are and how their incompetence is actually quite giggle-worthy.

JSorrentine: So, the fact that after murdering/raping/pillaging/displacing MILLIONS of innocent people over just the last decade+ NOT ONE OF THESE VERY SAME fucking criminals that I now am seeing on TV has experienced even the MILDEST of social/judicial/financial inconvenience or setback - they've mostly all gotten RICHER, btw - you mean to tell me that you that think they are just a lucky bunch of bunglers who always just happen to land on their feet?

It seems to me clear that Maliki is here to stay. His eventual victory over Al Qaeeda will make him a hero among the moderate Sunnis who are terrified by seeing Al Qaeeda taking over of their areas as they resent having to count on the Kurds to protect them. The extremist Sunnis will swallow another tough defeat and their leaders will simply go on exile to Saudi Arabia or eliminated. The remainders Sunnis extremists will have to live with their frustration as they hardly represent 10% of the population
Neither France nor the USA want Al Malaki toppled. They want him 'modified' and more responding to the anxieties and the frustration of the humiliated Sunnis than Paul Bremer has been during the USA reign in Iraq.

Al Maliki may consider that when he'll be in a position of strength. This is why he has to crush the Baath-Al Qaeda coalition and he will use of the means possible to do that.

So there is at least 2 Counterpunch columnists that come here regularly, Proyect and Whitney

Now Proyect is clearly fake-left Interventionist Pro-Zionist scum, no doubt about that, but Whitney ain't much better because his columns seem to be lifted wholesale from the comments section here at MOA. Most of the content of his little screed linked above is almost a outright copy&paste of JSorrentine's comments.

What is it about Counterpunch that attracts people who are essentially "No Ethics"-scumbags?

Oh, if only some State Department employee, who cares about actual democracy here and abroad and who has the skills and fearlessness to stand up to our hegemonic masters.... If only such a person or persons existed who could get out the real internal planning documents, emails, etc.

Hey, whatever helps you realize the fucking absolute and utter murderous ABSURDITY of what's happening in Iraq, Ukraine, Syria etc etc etc and how the NON-incompetent PTB have completely and successfully NORMALIZED - over decades - said murderous absurdity to the point that intelligent conscientious people all over the West actually fucking think they are doing something by engaging with/underestimating these monsters and their seemingly never-ending litany of "mistakes" from which they always seem to grow more powerful and more wealthy. Go ahead if you think saying fuck will prove to yourself that you're not wasting your own time on this planet, then have at it. It's a free Interwebs.

@150

I say good for Whitney. Maybe now some of his more timid readers/fans will finally grow a pair and we can all start talking about issues - i.e., Yinon Plan, etc - that have only been staring us in the fucking face for - oh, I don't know - 20-30 years now. Better late than never!

I am new here and MoA is on my reading list for some time. I've learned a lot here and I very much appreciate insightful links and wise informed comments.
However I have a question: can it be that most discussed subjects are not connected to the financial aspects? I haven't found any geostrategical blog connecting the dots with the history of the world financial system. How is it possible not to see these too intertwined matters together? The pax americana is based on military power paid with DOLLARS!!!!! And the dollar IS toast. The (ungreat) USSA cannot allow another default. This failed country and its corrupt financial system is on the brink.
Its last default - Nixon closing the gold window - is for over thirty years upon us and they need a world crash to escape the next one somehow. It's the policy of scorched earth left behind and only then the nightmare will stop. The whole world was and some parts still are participating that enabled this situation. I don't know of couse for how much longer this can continue and to which extend the pain inflicted upon humanity can still be tolerated but every country and its politicians and MSM have sold out their own people.That's why we have repression and surveillance everywhere in place: They have to control the masses for the day X!!! Because they know that day is coming! And no, the policy of the Big Brother is not so secret, it's in the open but people are blind und dumbed down.

What I try to explain quite in a clumsy way is that this is a period of tansition which will not end in a WWIII as there would be too many interests hurt and the world oligachy is a world family, it will end in a WORLD FINANCIAL DEFAULT where geostrategical divisions will be established after some factions will have reached an agreement. Some unidentified factors - cyber war, electricity fall out, HFT etc- will be the main advanced as causing the fall.
Not the USSA, not the dollar, nothing to identify. Until then "they" are busy in creating mayham so that J6p would not be able to understand anything.

MoA as intelligent blog should consider this side of the coin too even if this implies hard work.

It still strikes me that *if* Maliki accepts the proposition that ISIS is really a tool of Washington neo-con intrigue *then* the only sensible option left open to him is to do something totally unexpected that throws those American plans off-balance.

Think about it....
Think about it....

Washington is supporting (however covertly) the jihadist forces fighting against Assad, and that includes ISIS who are (without question) attempting to overthrow the Syrian govt.

Washington is also claiming (however unconvincingly) that it is opposed to the jihadist forces fighting against Maliki, and that means opposing ISIS who are (again, without question) attempting to overthrow the Iraqi govt.

Think about it.....
Think about it.....

Maliki should withdraw his request for US military assistance and instead appeal to Assad for a formal military alliance against their common enemy.

Doing THAT exposes the hypocrisy of current US policy, because Obama will then be faced with two newly-elected Arab leaders who are uniting against a common foe.

What does Washington do then? Does it continue to support/oppose the opposition depending upon whether they have/haven't crossed the border between Syria and Iraq?

Does the CIA give weapons to jihadists when they are inside Syria, then ask them to hand back those weapons as they cross that border into Iraq?

This is a given: ISIS itself makes no distinction between Syria and Iraq, since its goal is a caliphate that replaces both.

OK, so take them at their word. Have them face off against a formal military alliance between Syria and Iraq, and ask Washington whether it intends to continue playing pretendies regarding its intention.

Washington is supporting (however covertly) the jihadist forces fighting against Assad, and that includes ISIS who are (without question) attempting to overthrow the Syrian govt.

ISIS has effectively occupied areas left by Assad's army and thereby prevented any US negotiation power in Syria. The US were left with no proxy in Syria. Turkey found out they do no control them but are blackmailed by them.

Washington is also claiming (however unconvincingly) that it is opposed to the jihadist forces fighting against Maliki, and that means opposing ISIS who are (again, without question) attempting to overthrow the Iraqi govt.

There has been an Israeli/Gulf campaign to unseat Maliki "as an Iranian agent", "dictator" coinciding with the Iraqi election, starting at least in February combined with a vicious terror campaign killing Iraqi civilians in crowded places indiscriminately that did not get any sympathy in Western media.

The spectacle of Mosul and the "ISIS march on Baghdad" have ended any US efforts to support this campaign by a force "worse than Al Qeida". More so as the international attraction of ISIS is real and they threaten Jordan and Kuwait. More so as the US election is nearing and Republicans already smell the blood.

The US has to be seen fighting terrorism again. They do not wish to destroy their allies' proxy forces, but they have to get rid of ISIL. That is why they are reactivating Al Nusra in Jordan - another trap for Jihadis. Same strategy as in Syria, get their proxy forces to fight ISIL.

So another stupid conspiracy theory from an idiot who disparages conspiracy theories when other more intelligent people propose them

And thislatest deliberately misleading pile of bullshit conspiracy theory seems to be that "oh yes it is clearly all now a nefarious conspiracy, BUT the US is just as much a victim as anyone else"

As opposed to your previous retarded theory which was "oh yes there was a conspiracy but dont worry cos they are all inept buffoons", a theory which is every bit as dishonest, deceptive and totally fuckin retarded as you yourself are,

So if the U.S.-Algerian “counter-terrorism” partnership is not really countering terrorism, what is it doing?

Algeria has some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the region and is currently the third-largest gas supplier to the EU, providing 10-20 percent of its consumption. A recent UK government trade and investment briefing projects that expanded Algerian production could meet 10 percent of UK gas demand, while a U.S. Department of Energy assessment finds that Algeria has the world’s third largest recoverable shale gas reserves. British government documents obtained by the London-based oil and gas watchdog, Platform, show that the UK is playing a central role in the drive to cement Western energy ties with Algeria.

The Algeria is part of a wider drive to diversify energy sources in the context of looming supply challenges. According to a UK government spokesman, when questioned about relations with Algeria, “by 2035 global oil demand, although reduced, will still exceed production from existing sources, and global gas demand will have risen.” UK strategy thus fits into a broader U.S.-led effort to dominate the region’s untapped oil and gas resources.

AQIM’s expansion across north Africa, Keenan points out, has focused on oil-rich nations - particularly Algeria, Niger Delta, Nigeria, and Chad. Over a decade ago, the latter signed a “co-operation agreement on counter-terrorism that effectively joined the two oil-rich sides of the Sahara together in a complex of security arrangements whose architecture is American.” This evolved into the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, which was eventually absorbed into the U.S. Army’s AFRICOM.

But as Keenan warns, bloodbaths like the gas plant siege prove that the new “Great Game” in the Maghreb is increasingly out of control. Short-sighted geopolitical interests in dominating regional energy reserves must be put aside before the cycle of violence escalates in ways all too familiar.

@JSorrentine et alia
Regarding the Yinon plan, perhaps we can look at it from a popularisation perspective. What I've found makes Zionist commentators a bit uncomfortable is hammering on the fact that AQ whines a lot about Israel, but never attacks Israel. I'd like to see the US population go 'into play,' i.e. have a general knowledge of what their authorities are up to, and cause some shit on that front.

But there are two problems, and conservatism is largely symptomatic of those problems. The fact that most anti-colonial movements are anti-US is seen as a personal affront to vague US patriotic sentiment; how do we get the US into play without taking patriotic sentiment into account? Moreover, the dysfunction of most of the 'post-colonial' societies is apparent to all, including those who pretend that it doesn't exist; pointing out the US role in that dysfunction will be experienced first of all as an affront on US patriotism. Unstated, vague white-supremacism in the US wrt the black population is the same phenomenon.

The main hope on that front is that the current crop of administrators in North America and Europe are stupid---the bright sparks that do shit like Yinon and chaos-sowing are growing older [Brzezinski, Kissinger and their cohort], and would have been partially replaced by younger personnel had the current crop not been so stupid---this isn't about ego, but about an objective reality---your current administrative personnel is stupid, for well known biochemical/policy reasons that changed 40 years ago (lead petrol); the up-and-coming personnel (thirties and younger) don't have that problem.

And there is a fundamental problem with your position. Any authority structure looks powerful, much like the facade of a building. Once you start tearing a building down, the assumptions of the system become apparent. Go reread the books by Gene Sharpe; take away his ridiculous assumptions about his home society, and about the societies that his books serve to attack (both are often highly alienated, although his victims are not substantially more or less so than the US). If you stop presenting the US and Israel as invulnerable, you might actually find more resistance occurring. Hezbollah after all studies Hebrew.

Compare your presentation, which is geared at mocking liberals (the fact that it is well-deserved speaks more to your status as a disillusioned former liberal than to the effectiveness of such mockery in recruitment---do we need more former liberals to build a movement, or are there other population groups from whom one can recruit initially? Your presentation is Tom Tomorrow, with facts that are beyond the pale for the latter) with the following brute statement of facts:

1. The Israeli strategy is old-fashioned divide and rule with Arabs. For an example, read Yinon. Notice that the goals to be achieved, namely dismembering nation states by foreign-sponsored campaigns, constitute terrorism, and would never be accepted in the states that sponsor Israel. [Likewise, the riots in the coup in Ukraine would never be accepted in USA, Canada, Germany, France, nor UK...]

2. The US strategy is to weaken poor countries to get cheaper access to their natural resources, such that US and affilated corporations get to pay a lower price for the resources, thereby realising a larger markup on those resources when reselling to western consumers, civilian and military. The only African country that gets a reasonable royalty is Eritrea, which is of course falsely accused of supporting Al Shabaab in order to harm the country and get you [the audience that you are addressing] to support sanctions against them. For details on how these commercial arrangements are achieved by the US government, one can consult the US Iran embassy documents, especially those relating to embassy-based 'trade' promotion, although the tactics may have evolved a bit from there.

3. The US strategy is implemented by a relatively small and consistent set of tactics. These include sanctions, cultivating a local pro-US elite that is a set of pathological liars (Ukraine presently presents the funniest examples, but any pro-US country can provide thousands examples); this is often achieved with 'human rights' organisations, that are fanatically dishonest, and have laughable double standards. New elites are constantly being groomed in the ideological institutes (e.g. 'human rights' groups; economic 'think tanks'), to be assisted into power by US sponsored coups de etat whenever the sitting elite gets ideas.

4. The status of the US-sponsored sitting elites is cemented through various corrupt schemes. Having these elites relatively replaceable has the advantage that the US can posture (through various 'anti-corruption' goNGOs) as being anti-corruption, thus their propaganda during a coup does have a correspondence to reality, and will be a mobilizing factor for the replacement elite's supporters, and thus we see such hyper-corrupt fellows as OBJ of Nigeria being a big player in Transparency International, funded by the likes of NED/IRI, WorldCom, Enron et alia.

5. The US system is relatively vulnerable; while they can murder without substantial risk of in-kind retaliation, their efforts at coups often fail, when they fall back on sanctions. But because of ideological choices made by the US, they are now in a situation where the sanctions risk harming their strategic position. And the continuation of the US system is dependent on a continual flow of natural resources, and (own goal---damn you, Bafana Bafana...) just in time inventory---witness shortages of food in central Ukraine right now :)

6. Another vulnerability of the US is its finances; wars are generally financially ruinous, so the US has turned to pyramid schemes, e.g. the petro-dollar and the like. This system is gradually unravelling, despite several US attempts at maintaining the status quo, e.g. the terrorism in Ukraine, Iraq, Libya et alia. But each new elite they install will need a semi-functioning country to plunder in order to have something to plunder at all. Therefor they keep on going back to the same 'problematic' (to the US) behaviour.

Another weakness in your position, again due to your liberal background, is your fanatical presentation; you give no hint of a life beyond politics---this is harmful for actual interaction with people. And your 9/11 position reflects that---I've got enough of a physics background that I can say with some confidence that the US government position (buckling induced failure) accounts far better for the collapse seen in the videos than any of the alternative theories---why did the entire facade of the towers fall at once, with deformed geometry? The squibs theory requires relatively consistent geometry, let alone the timing issues :P

So imperial stooge OMFG claims that hopes for mistakes on account of stupidity is equivalent to accounting for mistakes allegedly made by virtue of stupidity. Are you per chance a US or Canadian prosecutor? That's about the only place where I've heard that kind of stupidity. PS riding that donkey dong ain't gonna be so nice when your paycheck is 'late'---you'll come to realise the limits of your sugar daddy then.

So I prove that you're lying when you claimed you never said anything relating to "Imperial Ineptitude" and suddenly I must be working for the Empire?

Are you always this retarded or it it just on Saturdays?

You and Bevin/Panzer make a fine couple - any one that points out your obvious errors and your constant pimping of the tired old worn-out well-ast-its-sell-by-date ridiculous "Imperial Ineptitude" theories simply MUST be in the pay of some arm of the Empire

No wonder Leftism on the N. American continent is in such a sad sorry pathetic state

So I prove that you're lying when you claimed you never said anything relating to "Imperial Ineptitude" and suddenly I must be working for the Empire?

versus

The main hope on that front is that the current crop of administrators in North America and Europe are stupid---the bright sparks that do shit like Yinon and chaos-sowing are growing older [Brzezinski, Kissinger and their cohort]

And

anyone I have bullied has at some point attempted to do the same to me

In two or three years: "The check for the donkey dong riding will soon be in the mail. Cough Cough."

There's no doubt ineptitude exists and at all levels of state. And of course, there's just plain, simple mistakes or miscalculations due to timing or, the 'unforeseen' or whatever. But unless you believe in mass hypnotism, strategy is made, not by one individual, but by an entire phalanx of professional politicians and their various handlers, lobbyists, and civil servants.

It's clear, by any measure, well actually by the capitalist measure, that the project, initiated about halfway through WWII, to be known later as the Cold War, has been a resounding 'success'. Chaos rules!

Setbacks, yes most certainly, but overall, since the fall of the Soviet Union, reactionary capitalism is back on track. It just picked up where it left of before WWII and the New Deal'.

The big dif is that now, we all have a ringside seat to our own demise.

It's clear, by any measure, well actually by the capitalist measure, that the project, initiated about halfway through WWII, to be known later as the Cold War, has been a resounding 'success'. Chaos rules!

Posted by: William Bowles | Jun 21, 2014 12:02:01 PM | 180

But it simply couldn't be a success William - the "ineptitudes" have declared that all our leaders are morons, or if not actually morons then certainly not as smart as the "ineptitudes" consider themselves to be.

Since the Ineptitudes have declared our leaders to be morons, it follows (using "Ineptitude"-logic) that nothing they could do could have been actually planned in advance, since morons can't plan successfully, according to the Ineptitudes,

THEREFORE your thesis is proven false (I'm using Ineptitude-logic here, such as it is)